


by their right names

by consumptive_sphinx



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, Identity Issues, Public and Private Personae
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-07 03:16:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11050158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/consumptive_sphinx/pseuds/consumptive_sphinx
Summary: Tracer is not Lena Oxton.Soldier: 76 is not Jack Morrison.Mercy is not Angela Ziegler.Pharah is not Fareeha Amari.D.Va is not Hana Song.(And Reaper is not Gabriel Reyes, and Widowmaker is not Amélie Lacroix — but that's another story.)





	by their right names

Everybody knows about Tracer.

Of course they do — she's one of Overwatch’s poster children, the girl looking wide-eyed and fresh-faced out of all the old recruitment posters, a symbol of a new generation, a symbol of hope. She's the girl with the spiky hair and the orange goggles and the gadget strapped to her chest, the girl who helped save the world, and anyone who lived through the Omnic crisis or anyone born since would know her face in an instant. How could they not?

Lena tries to live up to that image. To be that optimistic, to be the face of hope. She can manage most of the time — even in Overwatch, barely anyone can tell that she's trying — but there are days when it's harder than she'd like it to be.

There are days when she can't fly because every plane looks like the Slipstream, days when her chronal accelerator slips a little in its harness and Lena remembers phasing in and out of a moment like a ghost and maybe she's phasing into that moment right now because it's been years and years and she shouldn't remember it that sharply and was she ever really solid or was that a dream and —

There are days when even Emily looks at her and sees only a hero, and Lena feels as if she is suffocating under Tracer’s weight.

* * *

Sometimes _(Jack/76)_ wonders if Gabriel wears Reaper like Jack wears Soldier: 76, or if Gabriel wears Reaper like 76 wears Jack Morrison.

(He has never wondered if Reaper ever wears Gabriel. It is not a thought worth considering.)

In the original Overwatch, there was nothing but Jack Morrison — nothing but the blue-eyed blond-haired all-American farm boy from the posters and the holos, and if _(Jack/76)_ couldn't always live up to it then he just had to wear the persona like a mask. After the explosion there was only 76, only running and a mild death wish that stayed that way as long as 76 never thought about being Jack, and if he ever _did_ think about being Jack then he would just have to hold 76 like a shield.

Now he is in Overwatch again, and there is both. It's a balancing act, to say the least; some days even _(Jack/76)_ cannot tell which one he is and which one he is wearing, whether it is a mask or a shield or something else entirely.

He wonders if Gabriel ever thinks of himself as Reaper, and he wonders if Reaper is a mask or a shield or a cloak or a bulletproof vest, and he wonders what Gabriel would say if he could see him now.

* * *

Angela has never hated her name, but it wears on her sometimes.

There is more pressure than she had ever imagined, to be an angel-but-not-quite. To be a doctor second and a medic first, on a battlefield and not in an operating room, and to still be a human being — it was more, almost, than Angela could bear.

It should have been more difficult to be Mercy. It should have been harder to be divine than to be human; wings should have been heavier on her back than a first-responder kit. But it was easier, much easier, to fly and to resurrect, than it was to kneel in the dirt beside a bleeding man and cut him open further.

It should have been easier to be Angela than to be Mercy. It should have been easier to be a medic than to be an angel, easier to be a human being than a symbol.

Mercy is not sure what it says about her that it wasn’t.

* * *

 In the sky in her armour there is nothing at all that can touch her, nothing that can come close. Justice rains from above, and _Pharah_ rains from above, and there is nothing at all that can stop her or hurt her or pull her down from the air, and that is how she likes it. In the sky she is Pharah, one of the Pharaohs of old, a god rather than a human being, a king on her throne, justice incarnate with a talent to match.

But when she steps out of that suit she is Fareeha Amari again, a woman of the earth and not of the sky, and she is more vulnerable than she wishes to be. Fareeha always feels a little too uncertain when she is not in her armour, a little too fragile, a little too breakable.

Fareeha can imitate Pharah, to an extent — can smile with as many teeth, can walk as quickly and as surely as Pharah flies, can speak with the same rhythms and use the same tactics and love all the same family with all the same strength — but she cannot be her. She wishes that she could, and wishes that she did not wish it, and escapes to the sky — to Pharah — whenever she can.

* * *

 Hana has never liked crowds. That’s what D.Va’s for.

D.Va loves attention, revels in it. She is the best at what she does, and she wants everybody in the whole world to know it. Hana is the best at what she does as well, and she would like people to know it, but she wishes that they wouldn’t stare at her. D.Va loves when people stare; that’s the point of her.

 _I play to win,_ says D.Va, and it is a challenge: I will win, and I dare you to stop me. _I play to win,_ says Hana, and it is a statement of fact: I will keep going, and if you stop me, I will go again and again until I do not lose.

 _I am the best at what I do,_ says Hana, and she is admitting to a part of herself that she does not like, that she is the best at killing and the best at games that mean very little and the best at nothing else because that is not what she does. _I am the best at what I do,_ says D.Va, and she is bragging, she wants attention, she wants them to agree with her because she is right. 

Hana does not admit to anything, because admission of weakness is exposure of weakness and she cannot afford that even when surrounded by Overwatch. D.Va does not admit to anything, because she has nothing to admit to.

That’s what D.va's _for._

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] By their right names](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14414454) by [Annapods](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annapods/pseuds/Annapods)




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